If you’re a dentist or dentistry professional, or know of anyone or business that is, then you’ll certainly want to read and share today’s post.
As I travel throughout the Austin metroplex and in general, whether business or personal travel, domain encounters are as natural as breathing. I discover the good, the bad, and ugly too.
In case of today’s article, I stumbled upon a forward-thinking dentist and Austin-based dentistry business using a new top-level domain (new TLDs) to represent its digital presence.
I was on my way from a meeting with a potential customer of search marketing services when I spotted what appeared to be a dot amongst three words.
Not knowing if it was a domain or not, I pulled into the parking lot, whipping out the phone and eagerly typing in the following domain into the web address bar of my web browser: TotalCare.Dental.
And sure enough, up pops the responsive website of Dr. Tatyana Haddock, DDS — a very accomplished dentistry professional owning and operating an Austin-based dental practice.
With so many new TLDs flooding the domain industry and internet over the last 5 years, with more to come, I can’t keep up with what keywords to the right of the dot are legit.
At first glance, I thought maybe the dot was a part of the signage design. This thought didn’t make much sense due to the dot making TotalCare.Dental asymmetrical.
This is certainly one of the challenges with new TLDs, not knowing the dot and word to the right of it is equivalent to .com.
In fact, many people are confused by new TLDs and inadvertently type .com when typing into a web browser’s address bar.
Typing keywords to the right of the dot and nothing more will take some time getting used to as opposed to typing legacy TLDs.
And although I was surprised to encounter a .dental extension and domain, I was more so surprised to discover that a .dentist extension is also available to the general public.
Between the two extensions, .dental is the preferred extension although both .dental and .dentist are steadily growing since being launched years ago.
Of course, both extensions pale in comparison when juxtaposing registration numbers to that of a .com or legacy extension.
One reason registration numbers are substantially lower is due to both extensions qualifying as a focused niche or a specialty domain extension as opposed to being a de facto extension as .com long reigns.
However, the good news is that specialty domain extensions not only narrow the focus, but they help give relevance and contacts for what online searchers and customers can expect to find when visiting the domain.
In addition, new TLDs are also relevant when considering the search ranking impact, as discovered by Bill Hartzer’s new TLD case study.
You know me well if you guessed that I would go searching for available domain variations next. ?
Mixing and matching keywords while adding geo context, I discovered the following domains (* denotes domain was available at time of publication):
- TotalCare.Dental
- TotalDental.Care*
- AustinDental.Care
- ATX.Dental
- Austin.Dental*
- Austin.Care
- ATX.Care
- ATX.Dentist (Premium)*
- Austin.Dentist
- ATXFamily.Dentist*
- AustinFamily.Dentist (Premium)*
- TotalDentalCare.com
- TotalCareDental.com
- TotalCareDentist.com
- TotalDentistCare.com*
- AustinDentistCare.com*
- AustinDentalCare.com
- ATXDentistCare.com*
- ATXDentalCare.com*
Lastly I Googled and discovered additional .dental domains used to represent the digital presence of two dental practices.
The first domain, Young.Dental, is a Missouri-based dental practice dedicated to providing the dental community with innovative, high-value products that reflect the professionalism of the industry.
Young.Dental redirects to YoungDental.com, which I classify this type of domain registration and use as a defensive domain registration protecting a brand.
The second, Soothing.Dental, appeared a bit familiar to me for some strange reason. Come to find out, I read about Soothing.Dental not long ago thanks to Morgan Linton moving back to the San Francisco area from Austin, Texas.
In fact, Soothing.Dental is an interesting website and service offering of modern concierge dentistry. In short, it harnesses the power of technology to create a seamless, modern dental experience without all the paper pushing simply using a mobile app.
Talk about transforming a longstanding industry known for being behind the proverbial eight ball of technology.
And on that note, I’m going to transform and transition to calling it a day. That’s all for now!
As a domain investor and business consultant, Alvin actively participates in daily domain auctions. Outside of auctions, he passionately shares his views, opinions, and vision for how businesses should and should not use domain names to generate greater customer growth and revenue.
